Born 1962 in Baghdad, is an Iraqi-Dutch multi disciplinary visual artist. He is primarily known for conceptual art that explores themes such as war, political conflict, exile, loss, and historical memory. Much of his work contains autobiographical elements. He is also a graphic designer and print maker.
Mind storming - digital grid, The first sketch 2020
"The grid structure organizes my thought process. It also enlarges the scope and the field of my vision. Therefore, I will be able to see all hundred years very clearly. In mainstream culture, man is used to view time in a simple linear fashion--only one dimension. My mind is structured like a grid. This is how I process and organize data. I am distilling 100 years in a square. There are good times and bad times. Good years and bad years. I choose to keep the good years and delete the bad years. Therefore, you will find that my grid has 80 years and not 100 years.
The grid takes into account the here and now. We have to cease the present moment as well and meditate. It is essential to reflect and be present in any given moment."(http://www.studionedim.com/20th/index.html)
First I created a grid, then put text in each box. I translated and rotated the text based on a checkered pattern. I thought it would be interesting to capture random boxes and shade it within the grid, creating a new pattern each time. I had the idea of filling each box with consonant and vowel pairs, as to how Alibata is written. Alibata is an indigenous Filipino alphabet. The pattern would then concatenate the Alibata in the shaded boxes and create words (both real and imagined).
So far I've only filled each box with Alibata which says "pa rin," a suffix often used to mean "remains" or "still", to convey that there are countless ways to digest the last 100 years, but the objective truth remains uncertain (and maybe unimportant). See Demo.
let myFont;
function preload() {
myFont = loadFont('assets/Dimasala-K77D7.ttf');
}
function setup() {
createCanvas(1000, 1000);
background("#FFFFFD");
noFill();
noLoop();
for (let x = 0; x < width; x += 100) {
for (let y = 0; y < height; y += 100) {
stroke("#FFFFFD");
strokeWeight(2);
rect(x, y, 100, 100);
}
}
}
function draw() {
angleMode(DEGREES);
noStroke();
fill("#3E446F");
var shadedValues = [];
for (let x = 0; x < width; x += 100) {
for (let y = 0; y < height; y += 100) {
push();
const isShaded = random(1, 10) <= 4;
const string = 'pa rin';
if (isShaded) {
shadedValues.push(string);
fill('rgba(62, 68, 111, 0.88)');
} else {
fill("#FFFFFD");
}
if (
(x % 200 == 0 && y % 200 == 0) ||
(x % 200 == 100 && y % 200 == 100)
) {
translate(x, y);
strokeWeight(2);
stroke("#3E446F");
rect(0, 0, 100, 100);
noStroke();
rotate(45);
} else {
translate(x, y + 100);
strokeWeight(1);
stroke("#3E446F");
rect(0, -100, 100, 100);
noStroke();
rotate(-45);
}
if (isShaded) {
fill("#FFFFFD");
} else {
fill("#3E446F");
}
textAlign(CENTER);
textSize(20);
textFont(myFont);
text(string, 0, 0, 141, 141);
pop();
}
}
var shadedValuesString = "";
shadedValues.forEach((value) => {
shadedValuesString += value;
shadedValuesString += " | ";
});
console.log(shadedValuesString);
}
Nedim Kufi's
Mine, written in Alibata numbers
It is certainly quite wrong to read a poem in a hurry as if it were a telegram.